A Comfort of Cats by Doreen Tovey Read Free Book Online

years.)
    Â Â It wasn't injured, however. It was sitting up on its haunches eating grass seed, turning the tassel like a corn-cob in incredibly tiny paws, ignoring me completely as if I were some sort of local tree. By the time Charles came up it had finished that grass head and moved a foot or so up the bank, where it selected another which it sat up and nibbled while it looked interestedly down at Annabel.
    Â Â 'Perhaps it's got concussion,' I whispered to Charles. Never had I seen an outdoor mouse so confident. Charles studied it closely.
    Â Â 'Nothing wrong with that one,' he said. 'It's just not afraid of anything.'
    Â Â Neither was the one I saw next day eating bird crumbs by the cotoneaster in the yard. It was sitting nonchalantly with its back to me and didn't even turn round as I passed. It wasn't the mouse we'd seen in the lane. This one was definitely larger. There was the same air of insouciance, however – the obvious lack of fear. I wondered if they came from the same litter.
    Â Â That afternoon the cotoneaster mouse was taken into custody by Shebalu. I shouted when I saw her creeping up on him but he determinedly took no notice. She carried him indoors, moaning horribly between her teeth as is her wont when she's announcing that she's caught something. That in itself would frighten most mice to death – it shakes even me when I hear it. But the moment she put it down to give a louder bellow for Sass (never around, said her expression, when he was Wanted) the mouse got up and, while she still had her mouth open, nipped quietly into the kitchen.
    Â Â I hoped he'd go straight through it and out into the yard but instead he went into a cupboard. Not, we realised when we knew him better, because he was scared and seeking refuge. He was busy summing up the prospects. That was in October. That mouse, soon to be known as Lancelot (because, phonetically, that was what he did to Charles's nuts), stayed with us till the following spring, resisting all our attempts to expel him. He moved his headquarters at times but we always knew where he was. We had only to look for the cats.
    Â Â It was they, the first day, who told us he was in the cupboard. They were camped hopefully outside it. Sass with not the least idea why he was there – he'd never yet seen a mouse – but copying Shebalu, trying to look intent, though his ears did wander occasionally. I shut them in the living-room and turned out the tins and packets. Sure enough there was the mouse in the last corner. I put on a glove, reached out a hand – he jumped over it and disappeared behind me.
    Â Â He was under the cooker, according to Shebalu, whom I fetched out to say where he'd gone. He could actually See Him, said Sass, peering under with one eye. Apparently the mouse saw Saska, too. He shot out and into another cupboard. Only to check that he had an escape route, though. Having done so he came back and went under the cooker.
    Â Â There, shuttling between cooker and cupboard with the waste bin sheltering his passage (we put it there on purpose to give him protection from the cats) he lived contentedly for several days and might indeed have spent all winter... there were only cleaning things in that cupboard and I kept the doors of the others firmly closed... if it weren't for the fact that I began to have a conscience about him. It seemed hardly the life for a field-mouse.
    Â Â I started to put down crumbs for him. They were definitely gone each morning. After a couple of days, though, I had another thought. What could he be getting to drink? I put down a saucer of water and he certainly made use of that. From the splashings on the floor next morning he'd either fallen in it or had a bath.
    Â Â He was obviously happy now, the only snag being that we had to keep the cats out of the kitchen in case they caught him. Not only was it difficult – sometimes I wondered if they got through the door by